I’d like to use keyboard shortcuts for switching between tools. As when editing a model, I need to constantly pan, zoom and orbit. Doing this with keyboard shortcuts is much faster & more convenient, I look at the piece from different angles, and keep focused on the editing.

The problem is that I keep forgetting the shortcuts, or never learned them, and looking it up in the online help is even bigger an interruption.

Why couldn’t you show them in the instructor, or better yet, right next to the tool button? Maybe have handy toggle button (with a shortcut of course) to show/hide the shortcut labels, so that you could easily look up the commands while editing?

+1 from me to the request I saw here, for having 2-letter shortcuts. Shift + ctrl are abstract, hard to remember which was for what.

No, the “nothing” what was I asked for in the original post. All I’m saying is that it would make learning faster & easier, if I could see the shortcuts, without opening a menu & memorizing the shortcut. Let alone searching + downloading + printing + taping a reference card.

How hard could it be to show e.g. letter “R” next to an icon on a button? Is it somehow very different from showing the letter on a menu item?

Yes. Because the icon is an image file. It would be easy enough to edit the image file to add the text although it would be very small and hard to read. But the user can change the shortcut key strokes. Then the text on the button would be invalid.

There are some tools that will generate a list of keyboard shortcuts. You could print the list and keep it next to your computer.

Well OK then, you’d need to have 2 text fields on a button. Maybe that is highly advanced, though editing 3D models and all that sounds more complicated to me.

Printing those on a piece of paper, aside from being impractical, sounds kind of old-fashioned too… imagine there were no dimension tools in Sketchup, and then you’d get a tip saying you should print your model & draw the arrows and numbers with a pencil

I’m only suggesting that if you want to know what your keyboard shortcuts are now, there are options. If printing them out on a piece of paper is too old-fashioned for you, make an electronic sticky note and put it on your second display. Or you can wait to learn them when and if they put keyboard shortcuts on the icons.

It could possibly be added in the tool tip

Remove the tools from the toolbars to force yourself to learn the shortcuts.

I wonder how large a toolbar icon would have to be to make text readable when the keyboard shortcut is something like Ctrl+Shift+F8?

I wonder how large a toolbar icon would have to be to make text readable when the keyboard shortcut is something like Ctrl+Shift+F8?

C+S+F8 ? I’m sure a good UI designer could figure out a way to show it. Personally I think I’d do with just 1 letter shortcuts, and dig out the rest thru buttons & menus.

Well thanks for the tips. After reading part of the “No more new features” thread above, I think I can understand the resistance towards feature requests better. I’m sure it’s a good application once you learn it.

The “No More New Features” thread was started by someone who doesn’t really know what’s going on. Every version of SketchUp has had new features.added. There isn’t resistance to adding new features but they need to make sense for a large portion of the user base and they need to fit with the core philosophy.

New users seem to make the most feature requests without first learning how to use the tools that are already available.

Showing shortcuts in tooltips for toolbars, as well as in the menu, has been suggested multiple times. Adding the shortvut in the instructor could also be useful but could be a bit tricky to implement given the instructor shows static HTML files while SU allows users to change the shortcuts. Showing all shortcuts directly in the toolbar would take up way too much space and look very cluttered.

How hard could it be to show e.g. letter “R” next to an icon on a button? Is it somehow very different from showing the letter on a menu item?

Yes. Because the icon is an image file.

Actually not much different. The MS GUI framework that SketchUp uses, allows this but the implementation is bugged.

To see the bug, first put the toolbars into editmode by opening the View > Toolbars… edit dialog.
Once the toolbars are in editmode, each toolbar button has a context edit menu available (which is not accessible when in normal application mode.)
Choosing the “Button Appearance…” item on the context menu will bring up a dialog to customize the button.